Just sharing my results from tonight. Once again I was lucky enough to have very clear skies. I was observing Saturn through my 8SE and I kept on pushing the magnification to beyond the 450X mark and beyond with perfect views.

With the 5mm eyepiece and the TV 11mm type 6 + 2.5X powermate the view was amazing... crisp and detailed. I thought I'd be stupid and put the 5mm and a 2X barlow to see what will happen, and even though the image was quite soft, Saturn was MASSIVE... of course that was 810X... but to my surprise I was still able to make out a brightish cloud band and the cassini division.

With such a steady atmosphere I had to try to image it and I think these Saturn images are the cleanest I captured so far, so I thought I'd share.

Work flow was I imaged the F20 pic through a Celestron 2X Barlow and the Skyris 618C CCD, and the F50 image was captured using the DMK 21au618 and a 5X powermate. The mono F50 image was used as luminance on the color data scaled up which was captured with the Skyris. I'm very surprised at the quality of planets I'm getting with the Skyris for a OSC camera.
Image processing was done done in PS, Stacking in Autostakkert and a very small amount of wavelets applied in registax 6.

I suspect I'm pushing my 8" SCT to the limit, or close to it, but if anyone has any advise or tips on how to squeeze out and more detail, please share. One feature I was chasing for over a year now was the Encke gap, I feel like I'm right on the verge of capturing it but perhaps my mirror is just slightly too small for it.

I got such a crappy image from my 618C through my 8" SCT (maybe because Saturn was low in the sky and with bad light polution).

May I ask what capturing software you used and how many frames per second you get?

I get very low FPS the higher the exposure goes so I contacted the dudes who make the camera who helped me flash the camera with new firmware but didn't change anything. They were saying that this camera only works with a particular Windows USB driver.

I think you chaps who do visual are missing Troy's point here. He is more than likely talking about imaging which is a whole different kettle of fish to visual work. The focal lengths involved in imaging range from 8 metres to 12 metres. An 8" scope will struggle with those focal lengths to produce a bright, well exposed and detailed imaging free of artefacts.

Try looking through a refractor at those focal length and there will be a similar related views. At low powers in my C14 on good nights it can be a visual delight and would challenge any refractor. Thermal equilibrium is vital for large scopes and of course seeing is king with any viewing of the planets.

>>>>"What do you mean that Saturn is a challenge for scopes under 10" ??"

Paul has already answered it

Every time when I imaged Saturn with my old C9.25 scope I wished I had a bigger scope for a brighter image and higher frame rates. If you have a monochrome camera you will really notice this in the blue channel

Great images there!
Maybe try to sharpen up the image, or better focusing.
I image Jupiter through my 8” SE last year and got excellent results after working on making sure the scope was collimated and focused accurately.
Sure a C14 will give up better result but it also costs a hell of a lot more, it’s a weight lifting session to set up and you will find the amount of nights where the “seeing” is good to image will be a lot less.